The Kingslayer and the Maiden Fair
by Myrielle
Summary: "In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining." Jaime Lannister learns that this is true.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Everything else belongs to G.R.R. Martin and HBO.

Summary: "In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining." Jaime Lannister learns that this is true.

_A/N: This takes place after Daenerys comes to take her throne. I love Dany, and this is merely the first of possibly three chapters. So please hold any indignant horses you have chaffing at their bits and wait for the end of the ride. As for Brienne and Jaime, how can anyone get enough of them? The Muse railroaded me into this; I can't write anything else! _

**The Kingslayer and the Maiden Fair**

**I.**

He has stood in this great hall many times, and his place had always been at the foot of the throne, just beyond the steps. 'Guarding greatness. Guarding dragons,' Jaime Lannister thinks with more than a tinge of irony, trying not to move his arms and legs too much because the jangle of the chains resonates so loudly in the silence. To his enemies, it must sound like sweet music. Jaime tries his best not to feel ashamed, but he cannot help but remember days gone by, days long past never to return, especially as he eyes Barristan Selmy in his white armour, the graceful drape of that long white cloak that covers him and haunts Jaime like a ghost. Honour makes for poor protection on a field where steel, chainmail and leather soaked in blood speak more loudly. But a knight is nothing without it. He has always known that, even when he put the Last Hand of the Mad King to the sword, and then the king himself. Even when the term "Kingslayer" had been coined especially for him, he went hunting for the pyromancers that remained. Perhaps only Varys knew what he had done in secret, for honour that Jaime has stubbornly clung to because he forged it for himself against all the vows he had ever spoken. It is honour as he knows it, and because of that, he holds his head high and blinds himself to all but the silver queen sitting on a throne built with swords.

Daenerys Targaryen is the blood of the dragon in ways that her mad father dreamt he would be. 'She is Rhaegar come again, only that the fire loves her.' She even looked like the brother whom Robert Baratheon had slain on the Trident, with her long silver hair mixed with gold, those large purple eyes that could be as hard as gems and—if one looked deeply enough—as ageless as sorrow or joy. A queen before she arrived at Westeros and queens that have survived long enough to sack cities, rescue innocents, burn enemies alive and pay them back in the same coin are more than girls hiding behind dragons. It is a bitter lesson the lords of Westeros learnt far later than himself. 'And here we all are, having bent the knee. So why am I the only one in chains?'

Of course Jaime knows why. Daenerys knows the very steps she walks upon are the steps baptised in her father's blood. In this hall, before these steps, with another dragon on the throne, Jaime's betrayal carries an invisible stench that cannot be washed away and which must be answered. 'Blood pays for blood.' And his has paid for Tommen's. At least his son will be safe. In Dorne, Myrcella has the love of a prince to keep her safe. So as a father, his part is done and he has finished whatever little was in his power to do.

It takes three defeats and the loss of almost half their forces before Jaime gathers his courage for the inevitable and seeks a private audience with his king. There, he gifts the young boy with another title—bastard. On sleepless nights and bright days that crawl by with unbearable slowness, in the little square that forms his cell, Jaime relives moments in his mind. Tommen's anger. Tommen's tears. The sound of quills, papers, silver cups that go crashing against walls, the doors that burst open as two Kingsguard rush in and Jaime can see in their eyes the fear that he has done it again, although all know him to be the boy's uncle. Kingslayer. It always comes back to Aerys. And in the weeks that follow, Tommen negotiates a truce with Daenerys Targaryen and of his own accord, gives up the throne that was never his in exchange for the lives of the lords and ladies in his service. He does give Jaime to the queen though and whether it is the bitterness of a son and king betrayed or the demands of a queen who will not be denied vengeance, Jaime will never know. He has not seen Tommen since.

'Nor Cersei.' The fate of his twin, once his greatest love, is also unknown to him and though it is troubling, it does not savage him the way it would have once. Not much affects him nowadays actually. He can count the number of things he cares about with the one hand the Bloody Mummers left him. And one of those is sitting up there next to the Iron Throne. Tyrion Lannister, a brother betrayed, a brother still loved, even when Jaime thought him guilty of regicide, now Hand of the Targaryen Queen. A brother who is now reading out the pronouncement that Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer is to be executed by tomorrow's morn. In spite of himself, the softest echoes of the jangling chains reverberate through the air now filled with sniggers and indrawn breaths. Jaime ignores the crowd around him, people who once would have licked his father's arse if it meant receiving Lannister favours. A lazy smile curls the corner of his mouth, his green eyes shine and his chin goes up by degrees. Even though shackled and in rags, no one does smug, defiant arrogance the way he can. A lion shorn of its mane is still a lion and Jaime has had enough stripped away from him to find the strength to look inside and keep himself steady on his feet.

"My Queen."

This time, the chains sing louder, above the startled murmurs of the crowd and Jaime swallows his exasperation as well as the wild surge of emotion that blazes low in his belly and sears its way to his heart. It takes a moment to breath properly again but that is all it takes for her to shove her way unceremoniously through men and women who are once again sneering at her audacity. 'Perhaps one or two admire her though.' He lifts his head and watches as Brienne of Tarth makes her way to him, alone. Behind her, Sandor Clegane holds back Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North ever so inconspicuously. Arya Stark's mouth is a tight line and Jaime cannot see the expression on little Rickon's face because he is dwarfed by the enormous direwolf the size of small horse that has eyeing Jaime like his next meal the moment he set eyes on him.

"Get back, wench," he hisses softly enough so that only she can hear him. They are both easily amongst the tallest people in the room, except for Sandor Clegane, and his words find themselves easily enough into her ear. The woman is slightly taller than him and Jaime wonders if he will ever get used to that fact. What he is never going to get used to is her simply ignoring his good advice, turning his words into wind and flinging them away into as much before she charges off into peril on his behalf. "Brienne," he pleads and that draws her gaze. She has the most beautiful eyes and Jaime is hellbent on keeping them that way. No one gets between a dragon and its prey, and lives long. If there's one thing the Targaryens and their dragons have taught him, it is that.

"Your Grace, if you may permit me to speak—" Brienne shifts even as he moves and Jaime finds himself once again behind her. He would call her "wench" once again but he does not think he can do so as quietly as before so he holds his tongue.

Daenerys Targaryen holds up a hand and when she speaks, there is rapt silence. "You have said all you can say already, Lady Brienne of Tarth."

Jaime finds himself staring at the back of Brienne's head and wondering what in the seven hells would have possessed her to approach the Dragon Queen and why in Westeros and Essos had Sansa Stark allowed her lady knight to take such a risk. The fingers on his hand twitch, a reminder that Brienne of Tarth is one of those things that matter and the cold steel around his wrist also reminds him that once upon a time, he had kept her safe under such circumstances and that he would do so again in a heartbeat. But the Black Goat of Qohor is not equivalent of the Three-Headed Dragon and Jaime tastes helplessness like bile at the back of his throat.

"But blood must answer for blood. And only death can pay for life." There is something about the way she says it that tells Jaime there is a story behind that. He has heard tales of the Dragon Queen, how she murdered her husband and burnt his body on a pyre with her dragon eggs so that the monsters would hatch, fed on the life of her dead Khal. Jaime does not believe that. Daenerys Targaryen has shown too much mercy and she has at least one honourable man serving her who would not condone such a deed.

"And on that, we can both fully agree," Jaime quips. Both women glare at him but for different reasons. On many occasions, his quick tongue and Lannister charm have both saved and damned him by equal turns. He is not Tyrion, the clever one who always measures words and wields them the way Jaime used to wield a sword. Still, he is going to try his best and that means not being silenced by a queen with three dragons and a lady knight who is possibly stronger than all the men in the room. 'Except for maybe the Hound. But my money's on Brienne, if I had any to bet that is.' Absurdly, it makes him want to chuckle. Casterly Rock is Tyrion's, and home to Tommen. Jaime has been stripped of his post and all honours, including his knighthood and Tyrion has severed all Lannister ties with him. Again, his hand twitches. "A Lannister always pays his debts."

Brienne flushes an alarming shade of red and Jaime knows she is just itching to knock him to the ground. And possibly gag him. It does not sound all that unappealing actually. On her throne, a look of satisfaction fleets over the Targaryen queen's face. "Then it is settled." Daenerys strokes light fingers over the arm of the Iron Throne. Jaime wonders when or if it will ever make her bleed and knows that he will never know.

"If Your Grace will permit, I will pay the Kingslayer's debt."

"No!" For once, a Stark and a Lannister speak as one and Jaime exchanges swift looks with the Queen in the North. Sansa Stark with her Tully red hair, a more refined version of her mother when the latter was a human body of living flesh, a girl who survived his son to grow into a woman wise enough to give the strength of the North to the battle against eternal winter and for that, she keeps her crown as long as her allegiance is given to the Targaryens. Unlike Torrhen, she did not have to bend the knee.

It is as though they never spoke. "What do you propose?" Daenerys tilts her head and for one beguiling moment, she seems more girl than woman. Cersei would have approved; Jaime grits his teeth, a muscle in his cheek ticking away. Women could be dangerous like that and Brienne who has always been more of a knight than anything else might not know this.

"A trial by combat. If I win, I ask that the Kingslayer's life and person be spared, whatever else Your Grace wishes to do with him." Brienne dares much by asking such a thing. Jaime knows she would ask for his freedom but even an honoured knight of the North must know her limits.

"He killed his king," the Dragon Queen counters.

"Yes, Your Grace, that he did. And then some more."

If Jaime could have taken that moment back in Harrenhal… well, he would not have. But he would have made her swear upon Renly's honour to shut her mouth and never repeat the tale. One does not tell a conqueror that her sire was filled with madness and hoarding enough wildfire to burn a city full of innocents to the ground. To be told that her father's murderer was the saviour of these people would be especially galling; the fact that there were no witnesses would be rubbing salt in the wound. Jaime doubts Varys has spoken for him. Why would the new queen believe Brienne? That the Maid of Tarth is unharmed and even present in the hall is in itself a miracle. Robert Baratheon would have taken his warhammer to her. Aerys would have roasted her in her armour. And his own son would have set his Kingsguard on her for entertainment.

"You would vouch for that with your life?"

"I would, Your Grace."

"Even if I name Drogon my champion?"

Even Barristan Selmy starts, although he does not turn back. Tyrion's eyes dart to the Queen. Nobody tells Daenerys Stormborn that she is unfair, it is unjust and unworthy. Jaime does though, loudly, furiously, with a roar in his voice and a snarl in his words even as the Unsullied who marched him from his cell into the hall seize him as he lunges forward. They assume he is after the Queen. What he really wants is the gallant knight who is standing before him and a dragon slavering for his blood. She is not unafraid, for her face turns pale and the pink, puckered scar on her right cheek stands out in sharp relief against the white, as do the mass of freckles that litter her skin.

"Seven hells, wench! Tell her no! This is madness—" And then the gag is between his teeth, he is being wrestled and dragged from the hall and Jaime cannot hear what the crowd around them is saying for all the blood rushing in his ears. He hopes Sansa Stark knows better than to give up her best knight for a lost cause and commands Brienne to go back to Winterfell. To Tarth even. Some place where there are no lions to save and dragons to kill her.

When the doors are shut on him, he does not get to turn back and glance at her, to see if she has withdrawn her offer. He knows she will not. When they throw him into the cell, Jaime clips his chin against the rough stone and tastes blood on his tongue. He spends the rest of the night shouting until his throat is so raw he thinks he might have permanently damaged it. He demands to see Brienne, to speak to her Queen, for an audience with the Targaryen conqueror. Dawn comes and his words are down to whispers, and in the silence that smothers his cell he begs Brienne to come to her senses. Crippled lions are not worth her while, Jaime thinks, his eyes closed, his one hand aching to twine his fingers in her hair and give her a great good shaking to make her come to her senses.

"If this is about Catelyn Stark's shade I'll kill her myself," Jaime mutters and for a moment, he smells blood, hears the ring of steel on steel, a brutal song muffled only flesh and silenced by death as they hack their way through the men who come at them in waves. Hyle Hunt is armed with a sword and Podrick has long knives he snatched off a body. Men fall like trees before a storm as Brienne swings and parries, and Jaime is just glad enough that the sessions he endured with Addam Marbrand and Ilyn Payne have left him fit enough to hold his own.

The grating of his cell door as it swings open and the sudden jerk of his own head alert him to the fact that he has been dreaming but before it flees, the last thing he sees is Catelyn Stark's hideous eyes staring out from a face worn ragged by scars, death and hatred even as he strikes her head from her neck. For days afterward, Brienne does not speak to him. She cried as she buried her lady, and he cannot think less of her for it. If anything, he would have done it himself just to spare her, but Brienne cannot bear him and so he endures her cold silence as she mourns.

'And later she thanked me.' Jaime's eyes burn as the guards clap chains on him once again and yank him to his feet. 'Thanked me for doing it, for saving her from betraying her lady, from being an oathbreaker. She begged my forgiveness for her betrayal. Begged the likes of me.' It is a long and very public walk from his tiny cell to the harsh bright light of the city above. The people mock him, jeer at him and some pelt him until the Unsullied order them to desist. After that, they have only words to throw at him. Kingslayer. Sisterfucker. "Hear me roar," several of them scream and laughter bursts around him like so many explosions.

Words are wind. They cannot touch him. But what horrifies Jaime Lannister is that he is not being led to an executioner's block. They are taking him out into the streets and in the distance, above the uneven buildings and through the smoke of so many chimneys, Rhaenys' hill looms with its jagged crown.

The Dragonpit.

He has seen Brienne of Tarth in a pit with a bear. And now he is going to see her in a pit with the most ferocious of the Targaryen dragons. Jaime starts walking faster. Two streets later, he is pulling against his guards, snapping at them to go faster and cursing them when they ignore him. Above, the shadow of a dragon passes and Jaime feels his eyes burn again. He has never feared death, not his own. But he is terrified now, and furious. As he drags the guards behind him, Jaime thinks about Florian the fool and all the ridiculous songs of knights who have died for maidens, songs that he scoffed at because the knights were hopelessly idealistic and unrealistically honourable. Jaime knows better than most what knights are, what knights do.

Brienne too has learnt to disregard such tales. It amused him to listen to her grumble about them, to stop his singing with blunt remarks. She felt they left someone like her out, a woman who was not the maiden fair, a warrior whose knighthood was unrecognised and rejected by almost all who knew her. 'I should have told her.' The force behind that thought is so powerful he aches with it. How can she not know? There are no knights like those in the songs, except for her. 'Only her.'

And if he cannot save her… Well, she is worth dying for too.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Everything else belongs to G.R.R. Martin and HBO.

Summary: "In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining." Jaime Lannister learns that this is true.

_A/N: Slight spoilers for the series and books (if you've not read them). If you want to keep reading though, be my guest. My thanks to the kind people who left reviews. And um, if you liked it, let me know? I'd like to think I have not botched this..._

**The Kingslayer and the Maiden Fair**

**II.**

_"Who wants to die defending a Lannister?" _

She might have smiled, as she tastes the echo of those words in her mouth, had the circumstances been less grim, less surreal. Brienne stands in the bowels of a great pit, deaf to the crowd that has come to see what must, in their eyes, be a contest between two beasts of sorts. Not that the outcome is all that uncertain. She thinks back to a dark night, a quiet tent, a king crowned with gold antlers with blood pouring from a wound, a hissing black shade that brought an unnatural chill with it. Renly Baratheon was a king and the first man she had fallen in love with. And Jaime Lannister…

_"Jaime Lannister sacked the Riverlands. He pushed Bran out a window and my brother will never walk again. He knowingly put two false kings on the Iron Throne—his own bastards bred of incest—and served them." Sansa is a furious swirl of blue silk and grey satin as she paces the floor. In an inconspicuous corner, nearest to the door, stands her faithful Hound. Sandor Clegane meets Brienne's eyes briefly and she cannot quite make out his expression. But she knows he would do no less for the fair and slender Queen of the North who has swept in like a winter wind._

_ "He also kept his oath to your lady mother, Your Grace. He rescued you from the Vale and from Petyr Baelish. I would never have been able to take you away if not for Ser Jaime. Well, I might have," Brienne shrugs slightly, correcting herself because she is not one to lie and exaggerating means inching towards that line. "It just might have been far more perilous."_

_ Sansa comes to her, clutches her hands and Brienne has never felt more conscious of her overly long fingers, her large knuckles, her calluses. "I am not denying his good deeds. But he has to pay for whatever else he has done. Not you. You serve Winterfell, you pledged your service to me. And I command you not to die."_

_ For a moment, it is Catelyn Stark who is holding her hand and beneath the youthful tones of Sansa's stern words, Brienne senses the same pure heart that had once been her mother's. "You would never ask me to commit a deed that would bring me dishonour, Your Grace." For one moment Sansa's face tightens like a fist and Brienne understands that she is truly angry. "Ser Jaime saved my life. I have to repay him."_

_ "You are all I have left of my mother." And he killed her. The unspoken words hang between them. The lit candles of the room draw shadows on the young queen's face and grief seems to lengthen them. "How will you defeat a dragon? Must both of you die?"_

_ "You heard the Dragon Queen, Your Grace. Death pays for life. I think she might spare him. He may remain a prisoner for always but she will let him live."_

_ "Then might not a swift death be kinder than an endless length of days penned up like an animal?"_

_ Sansa's words have an edge to them that were never there. Or perhaps she had spent too much time apart from the Queen in the North. There had been men to lead at the Wall, wights to battle, wildlings to train and the usual ridicule to endure until she proved her worth with Oathkeeper. Brienne finds her large hands pressing gently against Sansa's, a fruitless kind of reassurance. She bends her knee to her lady, and says in a voice so soft she knows the Hound cannot hear. "Then perhaps when some years have passed, you might ask the Dragon Queen for him. And when you have him, tell him to repay this debt owed you."_

Once upon a time, and it seems another lifetime to Brienne as she slides a gloved thumb upon the sword's pommel, feeling the grooves of curved manes and claws, Jaime had told her she was the only person in Westeros who believed he did not have shit for honour. His face had been flushed with wine, his emerald eyes brighter than the rubies hammered into the Valyrian sword she wore at her side, the sharp planes of his face softened by good humour and the poor light of the inn's room. And he had looked at her, long and appraisingly. "And why is that so, wench?"

"Brienne," she corrected automatically and sternly, and Jaime muttered something about Tarth being the original breeding grounds of humourless wenches. Brienne turned back and looked into her cup, still half full in spite of Jaime's best efforts. "Because you have been kind. I do not think your father raised you that way. But in spite of your family, you are. In your own way."

Smiles do not come easy to Brienne, but one did that night. And it was Jaime's turn to look down into his cup. It did not hide the convulsive swallow of his throat, or the fact that his shining emerald eyes had a suspiciously wet glimmer. Brienne did him a small mercy by draining her cup and running her tongue thoughtfully over moist lips. "I must say though, your taste in wine… that might be shit. This is rather awful." Jaime's empty cup sailing through the air at her was his only reply, along with a warm laugh that remained with her long after he had left Winterfell, taking his Lannister soldiers with him before the first of Sansa's bannermen arrived to swear fealty to her.

She prays that Sansa, seated so high above the charred stone walls, pale and gleaming in the sun as a white tower, will believe in her belief of Jaime's honour. It would make it worth it. She has no doubt that she will die by fire, tooth or claw this morning. Perhaps all three. It will be a swift death. 'Fearfully agonising. But swift.' Her hand slides down Oathkeeper's grip. Valyrian steel would cut through a dragon's scales, of that she has no doubt. She means to spill Drogon's blood, even if it is only a drop. 'At least no other knight can boast of doing the same.' The thought calms her, if only for a moment. The walls of the pit are burned but strong, and impossibly smooth. There are no handholds, nowhere to climb. A great gate sits directly beneath the dais of the Dragon Queen, its black and red curtains flapping in the gentle wind that circles its way into the arena. That is where Drogon will come from, out of stone and darkness, breathing smoke and flame. "Fire and Blood," Brienne murmurs. The crowd will certainly be getting its fill of that today. It occurs to Brienne to perhaps hate Daenerys, but she is a soldier and she understands justice, broken vows and honour in a clearer way than most do.

"Purer. More naively," Jaime pronounced as they rode side by side one winter white day. "Galladon, the Rainbow Knight, not to mention Florian the Fool that every minstrel feels the need to stuff down one's gullet at every single wedding and banquet. Knights don't believe in ideals and honour like those, you do know that?"

"I am not entirely foolish, Ser. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining. Only in the songs, sung by minstrels before battles and after, by minstrels who use their imaginations most liberally to sauce a war they never saw."

"Yes well, your mouth says that but the heart you wear on your sleeve tells me you believe otherwise."

"I do not—"

"Now, now, there's no need to get flustered and upset. When you flush your freckles just get more prominent. See? It's happening, right now."

Brienne was wondering how unchivalrous it would be to knock him flat off his horse in front of Sansa and all his soldiers, when Jaime took her breath away. "Don't change, wench. I'm only saying that because it would be hopeless to get you to do otherwise." Against the silver sky, he gleamed like summer and he had a look on his face that could almost be described as fond. "And I don't believe in any of the rubbish the bards sing either. But then I see you and maybe, just maybe, one or two of them might have gone some way to getting it right."

Again, Brienne wishes that she could have said something then. Instead, her tongue tied itself into knots and they spent the rest of the ride in silence until they broke for camp. Well, actions always speak louder than words, Ser Goodwin always said. Men may boast, knights might bluster. "Save your breath for your steel and the dance." The words resonate so clearly, so firmly in her head that she could almost believe the tall, gruff master-at-arms is at her side. But he had never taught her to fight dragons.

"You did teach me to never give up though." Brienne speaks to a ghost whom she believes does not hear her. Surely, she slides her boots against the ground, tests the stone, eyes the uneven surface and notes the huge gashes that time and the weather have not worn away. Maybe someday, someone will write a song about this. And knowing her luck with such matters, it will not be something along the lines of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. In spite of her fear, she smiles then. Such does not matter.

The noise of the crowd rises and Brienne pays them some attention for the first time since she stepped into the pit. Jaime has arrived, she knows it. The guards drag him before Daenerys and the pit is large and wide enough for her to have to squint to see him. She cannot see his face but there is no mistaking that golden blond hair. They will make him watch her die.

The slightest tremor shakes the ground underfoot and Brienne pulls her eyes from Jaime. With a reassuring hiss, Oathkeeper is drawn from its sheath, veins of black and red shimmering in the steel as it draws the sun's light to it. A beautiful blade for one last grim dance. Her heart feels like it might burst and before it begins, Brienne goes away inside, folds her chest in ice, in the fleeting tenderness and kindness she has known, in the memory of a king she loved and who died, a noble lady whose memory she still serves, in the affection of a Queen whom she has been proud to serve, of a lion whom she knows she must somehow love, although she does not know if it is the same as the kind she bore Renly.

One last dance. All the world shrinks to this moment, to warm stone under her feet, to the press of skin against leather, to a black gate from which she can see smoke rise. Rubies glitter in the sun and in her mind, they fall like rain upon the Trident.

One last dance.

* * *

Jaime knows hatred intimately. He still hates Vargo Hoat, and in his dreams—the good ones—he cuts the man to ribbons slowly and almost lovingly with a sword in his right hand until the golden blade is a thick bloody black and the screams that echo in his ears when he wakes are not his own. He hates Fat Zollo, the Dothraki who took his hand and sometimes Jaime still believes, the best part of him. For awhile, he hated Cersei for betraying them, for cutting him off in a way that was as painful as the three seconds and beyond after the_ arakh_ slashed down. The sight of Daenerys' bloodriders draws a snarl from him and the gleaming _arakhs_ at their side, slivers of fear. Jaime despises the involuntary twitch of his fingers and phantom nerves as his eyes glance over these to the Targaryen queen seated on a great chair with swathes of crimson and black that float airily on the wind. Oh yes, he hates and if hate could kill, Daenerys Targaryen and her ilk might burn like grass smothered in wildfire.

But they do not and Jaime cannot help but turn to stare at the great pit, at the impossibly high walls which are bloody ridiculous because really, dragons have wings and even knights in song do not best dragons in open combat. So why in the seven hells is Brienne standing there, waiting to die? Where is Sansa Stark and why has she allowed this… 'Fucking mummer's farce. Everyone is just waiting for the dragon to spit her out.'Oathkeeper leaps like a flame under the sun in her hand and the sight makes Jaime ache all over again, bone-deep and breathless and sick but proud because the Maid of Tarth is showing more courage than an army would. He is in chains and rags, he has no sword hand (and even then this is not a duel he can hope to win for her), he has no House, he is no one. That she does this for him makes Jaime feel a hundred times more worthless than he already knows he is but it straightens his spine and lifts his chin and he turns away from her because he must needs speak to the Dragon Queen and he does not think tears in his eyes will sway her.

"Kill me." The words come out splintered, like a spear shivered when it crashes against armour that does not yield. Jaime clears his throat, takes a step towards the dias, is shoved back and he cannot but help notice that the stone beneath his boots is warm enough for his skin to feel it. The fucking dragon is underneath the floor he stands on, in some great hole and it is just waiting to be released. "Your reptile is already warmed up and the gate is just over this wall. I don't think the fall would kill me." Jaime makes a show of peering over the edge and steps back again. "Yes, I'd definitely survive that though I might break both legs and some other unfortunate bones. But that would make it a better game, wouldn't it? Give the crowd the show you've brought it to bay for. Give them a crippled lion for your dragon to toy with."

Daenerys looks at him as though he were a fool, a mad dog barking and reminds him so much of both Tywin and Aerys that Jaime stops for a moment. "So maybe I'll just toss myself over and while I'm at that, you can get your eunuchs or your Unsullied, whatever they're called, to open up that door I see at the far end and let her through it." He gets as far as dodging the guards behind him and makes it close enough to touch the wall's edge with his hands. Then he is dragged back and two hard blows to his stomach respectively knock the wind from him and possibly crack a rib. Only years of ingrained Lannister pride keep him on his feet without support.

Daenerys speaks in a foreign tongue and it sounds too guttural to Jaime's ears to be High Valyrian. Stone trembles, people draw back and smoke spirals through the air. The gate is lifting. 'Mother, Maiden and Warrior.' He has not prayed in over a decade but even he realises the thought for what it is as it slashes its way through the panic that suffocates him. "Is this what you gained the Iron Throne for? Your father burned worthy and unworthy men with wildfire and now you want to better him by using a dragon on a knight that's worth all your Dothraki, any of your Kingsguard?"

Jaime looks at Barristan Selmy who meets his gaze with a blank coolness that the former and younger Lord Commander recognises. "Oh yes, there it is," he mocks, raising his voice. "Didn't we all look like that when Aerys was on his throne and in the throes of his madness? I still remember Rickard Stark. I still see Brandon Stark. And I can still hear Queen Rhaella." Selmy's stern face, with its fine parchment of wrinkles and silver brows, never changes. "Honourable as always, to the very end." Jaime inclines his head. "You always were the better man, Ser." Even Tyrion, who is—strangely enough—nowhere to be seen would be proud of the knives in his words. Bravado disguises desperation and Jaime knows he can expect no help from the man whom he replaced.

"Be silent, Kingslayer." Daenerys waves a dismissive hand at him and Jaime wishes he could add Queenslayer to the already lengthy list of charges laid at his feet. "It is a choice she made freely, even when I gave her room to free herself without shame from this trial."

"The wench is as stupid and naively stubborn as she is homely," he growls. "She lacks the good sense to make a discerning choice—" Then his throat closes up as the grating of turning chains stops. The crowd holds its collective breath and the arena holds the silence of a thousand graves. Then Drogon steps out, walks beyond the space where it was held and the pit shakes. Even Jaime's eyes widen as he stares at the back of that massive skull, the long neck that arches like a great serpent, the black scales that don't shine but which seem to suck down the sunlight into darkness, the curved horns that twist and rise to sharp ends that he has no doubt will split armour as easily as Valyrian steel would naked skin. 'And they say the dragon is not done growing,' he thinks numbly. No wonder men screamed "Balerion!" even in their death throes. And then the dragon spread its wings and the sun seemed to go out. 'I wonder if Tyrion has ever been so close to a dragon. I wonder what he would say now.'

But his brother has deserted him and Jaime cannot find anything that would vindicate any resentment he might feel at that fact. In all truth, he never resented Tyrion for doing that. He does think he is beginning to understand the kind of rage that led Tyrion to climb a secret passage and murder their father, the anger that he has fed on for years. Tyrion's words, spoken so long ago in darkness between them, now might be his own. If they killed Brienne…

_…I can't begin to tell you what you've earned. But you'll have it, that I swear to you. A Lannister always pays his debts…_

She will kill him anyway. This might kill him. Despair dampens blinding fury and Jaime knows there is no vengeance worth seeking if it ends here today. 'A Lannister always pays his debts.'

"What do you want?" He turns to Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of Aerys and a strange sense of déjà vu seizes Jaime. This is the second time he is going to beg a Targaryen. Jaime barely feels it when he goes down on one knee, and then the other. "Tell me what you want from me and I will pay it. She's worth a thousand of me when I was fifteen and unspoiled, she's wiser than I'll ever be and…" He falters, swallows, grasps for words to move this queen. "You showed mercy to innocents and the oppressed. She is innocent. And honourable."

Danerys rises from her great chair and moves like wind over water down the steps of the dais until she stands before him. "What will you give?" Cool fingers touch his chin and raise his head so he is blinded by the sun that lights her silver-gold hair and turns it into a crown of flame. "How will you pay for her life?"

He has offered to die. But she does not want that. She wants him to suffer. Drogon roars and it is so near but seems to echo over a great distance because Jaime is thinking about Qyburn, about a great spurt of blood and the clean cut of white bone and utter disbelief as he watched his wrist come apart from his hand. He is thinking of phantom pains and twitches, of dreams where he is whole, of swords he will never wield and tears shed in hours turned bitter because he is so fucking helpless and it is just one hand, only one hand.

He thinks about his father and how Tywin smelt as the guards pulled him from the latrine. Was it fear or just a dying body's natural functions? Jaime thinks he might faint but he'll be damned if he's the first Lannister to piss himself in front of a king or queen. So when he lifts his arms and holds out his left wrist to her, he keeps his eyes opened and on his hand. "Take it," he whispers, and it takes every ounce of courage he has not to snatch his arms back and cradle his hand against his chest. He knows exactly what will happen when she does and he is so frightened but… "Quickly." He can't recognise that tense, hoarse voice as his own.

There is movement. Someone clad in horsehair leggings moves forward and Jaime wants to scream and laugh because it is an arakh again and he is back at the bloody sept with Vargo Hoat and Fat Zollo and life is over because if he does not die this time, he will find some way to kill himself.

Would that he could change his mind. But either way, the Dragon Queen will have her blood and Brienne will not die by fire. Jaime clenches his jaw so hard that his face hurts and he cannot stop himself from shaking, the chains from rattling so that they sing his shame. But he keeps his hand out, green eyes wide and staring, and waits for the blade to fall. He should go away inside, but somehow he feels… 'I don't think that will work this time.'

And then Daenerys Targaryen shifts and Jaime watches the strike come down in a silvery arc he has relived in his nightmares. And in spite of himself, he screams.


End file.
